With Him
by cubsmug45
Summary: This is a ChaseKim story that begins the night after season 5. What happens when Chase returns to Kim's shattered world? CHAPTER 2 UP
1. Losing Him

Hey everyone! It has been a while since I have written here (my other story is the ongoing "Day by Day: A Tony and Michelle story") but I wanted to write a Chase/Kim story because there just aren't enough out there and I really felt like these two had potential. Thus, I have decided to begin this. I would really like feedback, if you will. Thanks!

Disclaimer I don't own any of the 24 characters

General Info: I'm going off of the idea that season five was early wintertime (December) but this is not a holiday fic

This is the night after the finale of season 5 (so season 5 ended at 7 a.m.- this is around 9 p.m. that night)

On with the story…

Losing him once was devastating.

Losing him twice was even harder.

Despite her best efforts to rid her life of them, subtle remembrances of her father covered the home that she had destroyed. Her husband left with the child she knew as her own for reasons that she refused to take responsibility for until now. The rush of guilt had hit her like a ton of bricks; the "living" room became her battleground. _Ha_ she thought as she buried her head further into the couch cushion. _If this is living, bring on death. _Ironically, she _had_ come so close to death so many times in her short 24 years. Each time _he_ had been there for her; to get her out, keep her safe. Which brought her back to the point: why even try without him?

She lifted her head from the couch to go for another chug of the most recent beer she had pulled from the stash in her bedroom; there was not another sip. She lay her head down once more- eyes glancing over at the chess table standing near the dining room entrance. Even with her drunken pitch, the bottle hit that target and shattered to the floor, along with the chess pieces. For a moment she pondered why she hadn't gotten rid of it earlier as it was one of those remembrances she tried so desperately to do away with. But that was her last gift from him; and one of the best memories she had of him. She couldn't give it up.

The clock that stood above the television read 10 o'clock. She hadn't set it back last daylight savings time and the simple subtraction of one hour was difficult to calculate after the alcohol she had consumed. It dawned on her that she hadn't eaten since the night before, but eating probably wouldn't have gone over well with her intoxicated system. She glanced outside of the front window to see her neighbors enthusiastically putting up lights in spite of the rain. _This is going to be some Christmas. _She put her head down once more, this time dozing off for a short nap. Fifteen minutes later she woke and reached for her beer… oh yeah, she drank it already. She considered just going back to sleep, but she needed more to drink to relax again. The dizziness she experienced when she stood indicated just how wasted she was becoming; luckily the trip to her bedroom did not require stairs.

She hadn't been living in this house for a while. Between her father's death and her husbands desertion, it had become easier to simply live with the shrink. For the past eight months his loft apartment near LA had become her home, but she couldn't give up her own space. There had been more than enough in the will to pay off the suburban home she owned in Valencia so she kept it.

The shrink told her to keep away from alcohol so she wouldn't be tempted into a harmful addiction, but she had kept a stash underneath her bed at the house just in case she needed a drink at some point—tonight, she needed a drink. Through all of the tragedy, she had never built a reliance on alcohol, which is why this night of binge drinking surprised her so much. Nevertheless, anyone would agree that if there were ever appropriate circumstances to get drunk, it would be hers.

As she made her way down the hallway that leads away from her bedroom, after having retrieved one more bottle, she stopped at the hall closet. Opening the door revealed two large boxes labeled "photos." Next to the boxes sat a trash bag full of frames and other things that had sentiment of her now nonexistent family which she hadn't brought herself to throw away yet. She ripped the bag open to expose two different frames. One held a picture of her parents and her when she was about a year old that was black and white. The other was a picture of her on her wedding day. It was a simple day at the beach and she stood giddily with her new husband and 18 month old child.

Leaving the torn bag on the floor with frames and knick knacks strewn out, she headed back to the living room with her two photos to continue her seemingly self-imposed pity party. She set the frames up on the coffee table and sat on the couch to stare at them as she chugged her newly-opened beer. Minutes later the sound of the doorbell both scared her and set off a massive headache. The fright made her spew beer across the coffee table she faced. She got up, her head now throbbing, and headed to the front door. Squinting to see out of the peephole set off the dizziness she had felt earlier when she stood up. She couldn't even really focus her eyes enough to make out a face, so she just opened her front door. There, standing in the rain stood the former love of her life, drenched. Not in the mood to work up a fake sounding greeting to at least keep things civil, she blurted,

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Kim, I heard."


	2. There For Her

Thank you everyone for your comments. They are greatly appreciated and I will do my best to watch for grammatical errors this time around. I'm glad to know that I'm not the only person left on this planet with interest in the Kim character. Again, please let me know what you think.

………………………………

Resting her head on the door that she had grasped for balance, Kim let a face of bitter disinterest come over her.

"Which part did you hear? The one where my dad was still alive or the one where he left again?" As she spoke of her situation, Kim lost the battle to withhold her emotion. Her voice cracked at "left again" and she broke eye contact.

Chase studied her expression for a moment and, with slight hesitation, tilted his head to meet with her eyes. She refused to look up at him. He responded with quiet sympathy, hoping to somehow connect with her.

"Both."

She was engaged now, but still just as bitter. "And now you're going to pretend to care."

Her words weren't fair and they both new it. Their relationship ended for many reasons, but his lack of care was not one of them. Regardless of what Kim might have told herself and everyone else, Chase had not simply left. He did care for her and he knew that she would need someone tonight. Whether her words were fair or not, Chase had not come to get into another argument. He brushed past the harsh statement to once again express his sympathy.

"I'm here to help… Take it or leave it."

He acted like he had nothing to lose either way. The truth was that he had already lost everything when he lost her. Sure, he had handled the split much better than she did. He moved his private security company to a bigger office closer to LA and prospered greatly from its success. He had a daughter to come home to every night and decent hours to spend with her. He never wanted to leave Kim, but where he left physically, she had already left emotionally. In an effort to lessen the impact of her loss when he left, he had given her everything but his business, his car, and Angela. The house, the furniture, even the joint savings account was hers. He left with 100,000 dollars and a broken heart. To Kim it translated that he couldn't hold on to anything, but he had held on long enough. She was so miserable with him that he thought leaving would be freeing for her; that maybe he was too much like her dad for Kim to be able to move on. As she looked up with her glazed eyes staring into his, it was obvious that his leaving had not helped in the least.

"God, Chase. Why are you even here?" She let go of the door and stood upright as if to prove that she could hold her ground.

"I mean, do you really think that there is anything that you can do to help? That maybe I didn't have enough going on without you barging back into my life; like you have any right?"

The pressure of her stare caused Chase to look down and sigh. He wasn't ready for this reaction. He really hadn't expected her to be at the house; he was sure that Barry would be having a field day with Kim's emotions at this point. He really didn't know why he had shown up. He just wanted to be there for her- not as an ex-husband but as a confidant. He was shaken up at the news of Jack's sudden return and departure and the person that he wanted to share those feelings with was Kim. Maybe it was selfish of him to believe he had the right. He struggled to answer her.

"Look, Kim, I just wanted to see how you…"

She cut him off. "Chase, what do you want from me? Do you want the truth, no holding back?" He didn't look up and she didn't give him time to respond. "I'm drunk, I'm sad, I'm lonely, and I'm depressed. I could probably use better adjectives if I weren't drunk as previously mentioned and most of all I have been miserable since the day you left." She paused for a moment as he looked up at her, surprised at her admission. She corrected herself as her eyes met his once more. "Well, I was already miserable but I have been unbearably miserable since. There it is- that's how I'm doing. Are you happy? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

The tension built as she held his gaze.

"Now can you just go?" She begged his pardon as tears came freely; she felt more vulnerable now than ever.

The suggestion that this heartache she admitted to made him happy was a slap in the face. As if he wanted to see her miserable. And then it dawned on him: he really had come to see if she had been as miserable as he had been without her. And it did relieve him that he wasn't the only miserable one.

Perhaps in an attempt to lessen her pain in that moment, paired with the mounted tension from their stare, Chase took her head in his hands and kissed her passionately- longingly.

Water dripped down his face as tears fell down hers. Just as they had gotten inside and shut the door, still kissing, Chase broke away.

"Kim." he let out a heavy breath and began a whispered explanation for his hesitation. "I'm sorry. I just… I didn't come to… I don't want to hurt you again. I'm really just here to be here for you."

The kiss had knocked the wind out of her and she looked up at him with a crossed look that made him regret coming in the first place. She immediately turned away and, to Chase's surprise, began to run. He chased her to the half bathroom located right off of the hallway where she began to throw up the drinks that she had spent the entire night consuming. Chase stood over her and tenderly held her hair (which he noticed had grown unusually long for her taste). She looked up once and muttered softly, "I'm sorry," only to have to turn right back to the toilet.

Chase stroked her hair and gently whispered into her ear.

"I'm here."


End file.
